Movie review: Alfonso Cuarón's 'Roma' is an epic of life and love

By Al Alexander/For The Patriot Ledgerr

Thursday

Dec 6, 2018 at 3:25 AM

“Roma” is a movie only in name. It’s more an aural and visual experience that envelops your body before penetrating your soul. It moves you; it changes you, all while dazzling you with its artistic achievement. Its parallel stories of a woman and a family falling apart are simple in theory, but complex in their execution via the ever-evolving talents of Alfonso Cuarón. Like his Oscar-winning “Gravity,” itself a game-changer in how movies are made, “Roma” consistently leaves you in awe of a level of craftsmanship that can only be compared to watching Picasso paint. Every stroke, every dab is as important and essential as the one before it. Nothing is of waste, and it’s not until he’s finished that you can step back and see how all of its parts have been so concisely assembled. Yet, what impressed me most, is Cuarón’s eagerness to break all the rules, shooting in black and white, eschewing marquee actors for mostly amateurs and working with Netflix, the bane of Hollywood’s existence. True, “Roma” makes its TV debut on Dec. 14, but I implore you not to relegate it to the boob tube, where so much of its magnificence will be lost on inferior picture and sound quality. Again, like “Gravity,” this is a movie that thrives exclusively on the big screen and all the bells and whistles that entails. It also requires repeat viewings to absorb and appreciate all of “Roma’s” detailed ruminations on love and how it relates to status and class. The story, based on Cuarón’s youth growing up in Mexico City’s tony neighborhood of Roma, is both his most personal film and his most universal in that it’s all about love. It opens with water washing over a tile floor, wave after wave. Look closely and you’ll see the reflection of an airliner, a motif repeated throughout the movie. As the camera – operated by Cuarón and almost exclusively in wide angle – pulls back, we see the source of all that agua is Cleo, a domestic scrubbing away dog poop from the garage floor. It’s merely the first of many unpleasant messes she’ll be tidying up in her life and the lives of the family she serves so faithfully. The clan’s patriarch is Antonio (Fernando Grediaga), a respected doctor who all but demands that his wife, Sofia (Marina de Tavira), and their four preteen children be at the door to greet him at the end of every work day. At first, all seems right, as we watch Cleo help him pack one of the family’s cars before heading off to a medical conference in Quebec. Little do the kids know, he’s never coming back; opting instead to shack up with a younger, prettier woman elsewhere in Mexico City. At roughly the same time, Cleo (Oscar-worthy newcomer Yalitza Aparicio) learns she’s pregnant with a child fathered by Fermin (Jorge Antonio Guerrero), a narcissistic martial arts nut who greets the news of his impending fatherhood by threatening Cleo with death if she tries to involve him in the kid’s life. That’s about all there is in the way of plot, and it’s all that’s needed for Cuarón to spend the next two hours paying homage to his mother and the selfless nanny who raised and cared for him. As you’d expect, the two women couldn’t be more different: one a mother of means, the other a housekeeper with barely a peso to her name; one an emotional diva, the other a stoic pillar of strength, even when visited by an unspeakable tragedy. Yet, this family couldn’t continue to operate without either one. They are the yin to the other’s yang, even when Sofia is quick to remind Cleo of her place. What ensues isn’t so much an A-to-Z story, as it is an episodic character study in which we see each woman at their absolute best and despicable worst. Cuarón studies them over a period of about a year in the early 1970s, a time when the country, like Sofia’s household, was rocked by change, evidenced by the protesters filling the streets in a lead up to the infamous Corpus Christi Massacre carried out on June 10, 1971. A minor earthquake further extends the metaphor for a family whose shifting plates are a part of nature. It’s how they choose to rebuild that’s the question. It’s all very dramatic, including the delivery of a baby that will haunt you for days. But “Roma” is also full of laughter via Cuarón’s arch and subtle humor, particularly a running gag about how the family car is too wide to fit into their narrow garage, the floor of which is perpetually dotted with dog doo. It proves an excellent metaphor for a family needing to adapt to the narrow spaces life has allotted it. At the heart is Cleo; and all the other domestics like her who are charged not with just cooking and cleaning, but playing responsible parent to other people’s kids. In a way, “Roma” is a terrific companion with Anna Muylaert’s 2015 Brazilian gem, “The Second Mother,” in which a nanny was a better mom to her employer’s children than she was to her own. Such was the case with Cuarón, who thought so much of his nanny, he decided to make a movie honoring her. But “Roma” is so much more. It’s also about childhood and the memories we choose to keep and those best left forgotten. And that’s the way “Roma” rolls, as a series of recollections – good and bad – that meant so much to Cuarón he felt the need to get them on film while they still filled his head. In a way, it’s a form of therapy. It’s also a potent dose of nostalgia for people like me who are of approximately the same age as the 56-year-old Cuarón. I loved the vintage autos, the slot-car track that was exactly like the one I had in 1970, and those crazy fashions: miniskirts, platform shoes, check-patterned bell bottoms … It’s all here and exquisite in the accuracy of detail. But then, that’s the entire film. It’s nothing big or spectacular. Rather, it’s a series of little things that build and build until POW, you’re so deeply moved you have no choice but to weep for these wonderfully flawed characters. And then emit an audible cheer for an innovator like Cuarón, an artist who paints with his heart in creating movies that are as mystical as they are soberingly real.